Communicating effectively helps us build and shape support for mental health policies and programs that work. Framing issues in ways that tap our audience's innate optimism, empathy, and shared values helps us advocate successfully for change. But effective framing is not always intuitive, and it's easy to inadvertently undermine advocacy goals with communications that lose sight of the big picture.

In partnership with the FrameWorks Institute, MAMH is offering free training, tools, and resources to help you communicate more effectively to boost knowledge, shift attitudes, and build support for mental health and wellness in your community.

Training

Communicating for Change: How to Talk About Mental Health to Build Support for What Works is a flexible training available free of charge to organizations and individuals working toward improved mental health policies and programs, especially at the intersection of the mental health system and the criminal legal system or mandated treatment. Advocates, policymakers, and communications staff are especially encouraged to participate.

Each training includes an overview of effective framing, strategies to improve communications, and hands-on opportunities to apply the strategies to your own work. Trainings can be provided in person or virtually.

The full training, including communication exercises and time for questions, takes approximately four hours, but the content and training can be adjusted to suit your time constraints. Please reach out to discuss flexible training options.

Tools and other resources

Can’t attend a training? Our Communicating for Change toolkit will guide you through the process of framing your communication to better reinforce productive mindsets when it comes to mental health.

About this project

With generous support from the Helen Ladd Brackett Trust, MAMH teamed up with the FrameWorks Institute to develop this training and toolkit and to offer it free of charge to mental health advocates and others supporting self-determination and person-centered services for people with mental health conditions. The training is designed to help shift from a narrative that focuses on risk and vulnerability to one that emphasizes self-determination, choice, and effective, evidence-based policies and programs.

For more than 20 years, FrameWorks Institute has applied social science methods to study how people understand social issues—and how best to frame them effectively to achieve social change. The FrameWorks research team includes some of the world’s leading experts in the science of framing, who employ tested social science methods to uncover the most effective ways of talking about social issues and policy solutions.